Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/148

 140 I do not attempt to decide whether this is a mark of age, or the reverse.

But, it may be said, to establish the fact that the unnatural marriage-opening was a commonplace of storytelling in the British Isles is but a slight contribution to the solution of the Cinderella problem. Granted; yet the fact is interesting in itself, especially when taken in conjunction with the wide and long-standing spread of the Catskin-Cinderella form in this country. If, now, we turn to the first of Miss Cox's group-types, to Cinderella proper, we cannot, it is true, trace such early connection of any essential element with these islands, as we have done in the case of the Catskin and Cap-o'-Rushes types. But we can show that of all existing versions of the true Cinderella tale it is one collected in these islands which presents obviously archaic features (which have well-nigh disappeared from the literary versions) in their most crude and striking form. I allude to the remarkable Gaelic tale, "The Sheep's